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by Jacob O'Bryant

Publisher report for 7 June 2022

I'm sending this week's publisher report out today instead of Monday because I've been writing a blog post and wanted to have a draft ready to share with you all. Here it is: We need more tools for online speech. I'd like to launch a "tools for online speech" movement, of which The Sample is a part. I'm planning to publish the post on Monday. Let me know if you have any thoughts about making it clearer or more compelling.

By the way, that post is hosted on a brand-spankin'-new blog/newsletter website that I set up for The Sample. I've migrated the old blog posts to it. Starting today, I'm going to include these publisher-report-announcements on that website, and I'll send them out with the associated newsletter as well. As such, some of the voicing will change a bit, since I'll be addressing people who have subscribed on the new website in addition to those who have submitted newsletters to The Sample. When needed maybe I'll just have a section labeled "announcements for writers on The Sample" or something.

Another by-the-way: the new website is built with an open-source but not-yet-released publishing tool I've been building. I call it: Platypub. (I don't remember if I've mentioned it here yet.) I'll admit, taking a few weeks to build that was probably indulgent, especially on top of the three weeks of vacation-plus-getting-sick, but sometimes a project idea gets to the point where I can't help but build it.

Platypub is meant to be a bit like Ghost, but (1) more customizable + easier to customize (great if you're very picky about the design of your site + the way it works, like I am), and (2) built in such a way that it can be provided as a managed service with free plans (but it's also still open-source, so those who want to can self-host).

If that sounds like something you might want to use, let me know. Right now The Sample is still my #1 business priority, but Platypub might make a nice complementary product down the road.

—Jacob

Published 8 Jun 2022

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